DAVID BOWIE – “Let’s Dance”
One of the odd things about Bowie is how panicky he seems to get when he’s in fashion. The image of him as a “pop chameleon” is surely at least partly cover for a flight-reflex that kicks in when one of his stylistic changes really takes off. In the mid 70s, tasting superstardom on the back of his deviant glam image, he sidestepped into black US pop, making Young Americans and baffling his fans with “plastic soul”. Close to a decade on, and again the fountainhead of art-pop influence, he made exactly the same move, borrowing sounds and musicians from black pop to make a record that’s an exercise in knowing glossiness.
But something unexpected happened. Let’s Dance was massive: its smooth post-disco gestures fitting a current mood in pop, a retreat from frippery towards self-conscious sophistication, from pose to poise. It was to be the last time he matched pop’s moment so completely.
For all that “Let’s Dance” is an odd record. For a song about dancefloor erotics it’s harsh and heavy and everything about it seems half-petrified, the music a succession of freeze-frames. Bowie’s voice has an ancient, lizardly glide: there’s something as much vampiric as romantic about his invitations to dance and sway. I’ve often reached on Popular for the (rather hackneyed) idea that a record is easy to admire but difficult to love. “Let’s Dance” seems to be trying for this effect quite intentionally: it’s an impressively cold-blooded piece of work.
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Tom in FT / Popular • Pop • 3,047 views • Share/Save
I’d have thought it was a risky business having a radio playing in an operating theatre while someone is giving birth – on the grounds that there are a lot of songs which could be rather inappropriate to hear under those circumstances…
Voodoo Child, Born Under A Bad Sign, ‘The Omen’ theme… as it is, having a song playing which contains the lyrics “the child is not my son” sounds more like a scene from ‘Eastenders’ to me!
Congratulations, by the way!
Last CD we got before our twins were born: Robbie Williams – “I’ve Been Expecting You”.
# 101 – An amusing point but Pedantic Peter must point out that it’s Voodoo CHILE and not Child.
Radio could’ve been playing Baby Jump… nah! It doesn’t exist!
i was a sea goblin!!
congratulations tom! No radio in delivery room for my daughter, and my everso-carefully-compiled mixtape got lost in the confusion. We did, however, have peter hook’s partner having her baby in the next room. (We know this because the nurses & midwives were stage-whispering ‘Its Hooky!!’ up and down the corridor. this was in his Mrs Merton house-band days.) I’m saving this essential claim to vicarious fame for when the girl’s properly able to appreciate it.
probably in his slightly-post-mrs-merton-house-band days, in fact, seeing as his partner wasn’t caroline aherne
Congratulations! 30th May is the best day to have a birthday, but near enough.
Famous Drakes? We’re forgetting:
Drake Carrington
Drake Seven
Ahem.
we’re all geminis now
I look forward to Tom’s future children, Buckley, Hendrix and Joplin Ewing.
Are those other surnames of actresses who were in Space 1999?
Re 111: Uh, that would be UFO, Mark.
next i will be confusing jon landau with martin landau
We’ll obviously need to get used to longer gaps between Tom’s contributions for a little while, but this thread is showing signs of running out of inspiration. Why do we find it hard to write the next line?
Ooh, cheeky.
Can anyone (bar Tom) remember which entries have no comments at all? Do Wildheartedoutsider or Peter G fancy having a go at stretching an older, unappreciated thread?
UFO’s Gabrielle Drake, her of the purple haired wig, and sister of Nick!
number of popular posts with least comments
20 x 0 comments
31 x 1 comment
21 x 2 comments
23 x 3
17 x 4
15 x 5
14 x 6
18 x 7
11 x 8
12 x 9
9 x 10
7 x 11
4 x 12
6 x 13
7 x 14
2 x 15
top 10 commented popular posts
DONNA SUMMER – “I Feel Love” 121
QUEEN – “Bohemian Rhapsody” 122
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN AND JOHN TRAVOLTA – “You’re The One That I Want” 124
SHOWADDYWADDY – “Under The Moon Of Love” 125
WINDSOR DAVIES AND DON ESTELLE – “Whispering Grass” 129
THE SEX PISTOLS – “God Save The Queen” 148
THE BOOMTOWN RATS – “Rat Trap” 191
THE BEE GEES – “Night Fever” 204
ABBA – “Dancing Queen” 218
JJ BARRIE – “No Charge” 272
a crowdsource power law sort of thing
Re: 117 remembering that there were many early comments that got lost along the way…
GPWM of course.
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2006/07/engelbert-humperdinck-the-last-waltz/ #237 (with 7 comments now) was the first popular post after moving to wordpress (coming up to 3 years ago now). Tom pasted some of the HaloScan comments in for posterity, but that system only kept the most recent few dozen comments.
Thanks admin.
Do you fancy listing the ones with no comments?
Also, if yr interested, I’ve got a large number of the early entries on vinyl, fair number of pic covers, if yr ever bored on a bank holiday and want to put them up…
no FT, no comments
JOHNNIE RAY – “Just Walking In The Rain”
MARVIN RAINWATER – “Whole Lotta Woman”
CONWAY TWITTY – ‘It’s Only Make Believe’
ELVIS PRESLEY – ‘I Got Stung’ / ‘One Night’
SHIRLEY BASSEY – ‘As I Love You’
BOBBY DARIN – ‘Dream Lover’
EMILE FORD AND THE CHECKMATES – “What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For?”
CLIFF RICHARD – “Please Don’t Tease”
ROY ORBISON – “Only The Lonely”
ELVIS PRESLEY – “It’s Now Or Never”
ELVIS PRESLEY – “Surrender”
JOHN LEYTON – “Johnny Remember Me”
THE SHADOWS – “Kon-Tiki”
CLIFF RICHARD AND THE SHADOWS – “The Young Ones”
ELVIS PRESLEY – “Good Luck Charm”
RAY CHARLES – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
ELVIS PRESLEY – “Return To Sender”
ELVIS PRESLEY – “(You’re The) Devil In Disguise”
THE ROLLING STONES – “It’s All Over Now”
GEORGIE FAME AND THE BLUE FLAMES – “Yeh Yeh”
… and as of that last post, “Let’s Dance” crashes into the top ten listed at #117! Only another seven posts to go and it’ll be at number 6.
Blimey, this site releases your inner geek, doesn’t it?
Erithian # 114 – “We’ll obviously need to get used to longer gaps between Tom’s contributions for a little while…” “Tom’s CONTRIBUTIONS?” Whatever do you mean, son?
Lino # 115 – Often thought about this (well, Waldo has) and might well do something about it finally. Waldo totally wired into the French Open at the moment, of course. Then there’s a new tournament down here in Eastbourne and then Wimbledon. It’s going to be difficult jump-starting the drunken bastard but I’ll see what I can do.
Conrad # 116 – Gabrielle Drake was and is luscious. She turned up in an old Emma Peel “Avengers” episode running a cats’ home with Ronnie Barker. And it doesn’t get more surreal than that, let me tell you.
The alternative was “Tom’s entries”, Pete, which sounds even worse.
#115 OK… I’ve taken your kind suggestion and added my personal thoughts on a subject I’ve always been fascinated by – and have often felt quite passionate about – which ties in quite neatly with:
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2005/01/the-rolling-stones-its-all-over-now/
Gabrielle Drake in Coronation Street last night! (important admin announcement there)
Really liked this when I was ten, still do now.
Two things about it that I can belatedly contribute. Everybody comments on the glossiness of this, but the other side of this gloss is a sense of galvanised hardness. Not just the enormo-drums, but that castanettey thing which (IIRC) acompanies a shot of a scorpion in the video, the appearance of Stevie Ray Vaughan and the separated and thumpy bassline. Its not a record that’s asking you to love it. This effect is accentuated by the lyrics raising of the idea of seriousness and blues, I think. And the idea of moonlight supports this chiaroscuro separation and hardness.
The other thing is that I much prefer this in the seven inch/radio edit. The full-length version just goes on – it never really starts to breathe and swing like Nile Rogers’ own extended songs.
Another thing I remember. Didn’t this song debut in the Billboard Top 40 American charts in the mid-20’s. It caught me by surprise, but at that moment I knew the song would at least go Top 5.
I think the success of this one owes a lot to relief. Bowie had really tested his audience in 82 with the avant-garde Baal’s Hymn and Alabama Song and then that awful Bing Crosby thing so his fans were grateful for something conventional to buy.
Unfortunately for them, after this his output dropped off the scale with Tonight, Never Let Me Down and the godawful Tin Machine. It’s difficult to think of any other artist whose quality has slipped so precipitously.
MikeMCSG @ 129: I’d hesitate to call Bowie’s version of the Alabama Song particularly avant-garde, even if it is my least favourite of the four versions at my fingertips (the others being by Ute Lemper, Robyn Archer and The Doors). It’s no more avant-garde than Lotte Lenya doing it in 1930, let alone any of the above.
Rosie 129 # It is a relatively straight version I agree but in a chart context the song itself is avant-garde material. None of the other versions you mention were hit singles.
I may already have said this, but I recall that at the time people thought Let’s Dance was a sign that Bowie had run out of ideas and was just aping other people, while now it sounds weird and unlike anything else of the time.